Chapter 14

Money, Money, Money

IN THIS CHAPTER

Bullet Getting familiar with Brazilian money

Bullet Exchanging currency

Bullet Accessing money in the bank

Bullet Buying things with Brazilian bills and coins

Dinheiro (jing-yay-roh) (money) — like o amor (ooh ah-moh) (love) — is a universal language. Yet travelers need to understand the particulars of the money system of the countries they visit in order to pay for food, supplies, services, and activities.

In this chapter, I describe Brazilian moeda (moh-eh-dah) (currency). So you’ve come to the right place to find out what kind of money is circulating in Brazil, how to access your money from a bank or ATM in Brazil, and how to exchange your moolah for the Brazilian kind. I even give you Portuguese words and phrases so you can talk about money — and spend it!

Introducing Brazilian Reais and Centavos

The moeda (moh-eh-dah) (currency) in Brazil is called real (ooh hay-ah-ooh) (the real); the plural form is reais (hay-ahys) (reais). Um real (oong hay-ah-ooh) (one real) is worth around $0.20 (five reais per one U.S. dollar) as of 2022.

Brazilian reais come in several notas (noh-tahs) (bills), each with its own color and Brazilian animal on the back. The bills are as follows: R$1 (green/hummingbird), R$2 (blue/tortoise), R$5 (purple and blue/heron), R$10 (red/parrot), R$20 (yellow/golden-faced lion monkey), R$50 (brown/jaguar), R$100 (blue/grouper fish) and R$200 (gray/maned wolf).

Coins come in R$1, R$0.50, R$0.25, R$0.10, R$0.05 and R$0.01. The um centavo (oong sen-tah-voh) (one-cent) coin is tiny and hardly worth anything. Stores usually let you get away with paying to within R$0.05 of the price to avoid having the one-cent pieces around, which are worth 1/100 of one real, or less than half of a U.S. penny.

Soundnative Brazilian slang for dinheiro (jing-yay-roh) (money) is grana (grah-nah). Estou sem grana (eh-stoh sang grah-nah) means I don’t have any dough.

Getting Ahold of Brazilian Currency

Luckily, Brazil isn’t one of those countries where the taxa de câmbio (tah-shah jee kahm-bee-oh) (exchange rate) is confusing and you need to keep a calculador (kah-ooh-koo-lah-doh) (calculator) on hand all the time. As of 2022, the taxa de câmbio between the Brazilian real (hay-ah-ooh) and the U.S. dollar was roughly five to one. So if something costs 100 reais, (hay-ahys) that’s about 20 U.S. dollars. Just divide the Brazilian price by 5. Pretty easy!

In Brazil, your best bet for getting dinheiro (jing-yay-roh) (cash) is by making sure to pack your cartão de débito (kah-tah-ooh jee deh-bee-toh) (debit card). The taxa de câmbio is generally good at ATMs. Of course, you can always ask whether a vender accepts Apple Pay/Google Pay, in which case, you can just pay using your celular (sel-ooh-lah) (cellphone). You can ask, Posso pagar com Apple Pay/Google Pay? (poh-soo pah-gah koh-oong ah-poo peh-ee/goo-goh peh-ee) (Can I use Apple/Google Pay?) You’ll likely need cash to pay vendors at markets and small stores outside big cities.

Tip As of press time, if you want to trocar (troh-kah) (exchange) U.S. dólares (doh-lah-reez) (dollars) or some other moeda (moh-eh-dah) (currency) to reais, you’re likely to find the best rates at an agência de viagens (ah-zhang-see-ah jee vee-ah-zhangz) (travel agency) that has special permission to change money. Conversely, aeroportos (ah-eh-roh-poh-tooz) (airports) generally charge high commission fees; avoid casas de câmbio (kah-zahs jee kahm-bee-ooh) (currency exchange bureaus) there.

Brick-and-mortar agências de viagens (ah-zhang-see-ahz jee vee-ah-zhangz) (travel agencies) are getting increasingly hard to find, because most people book vacations online. Bancos (bahn-kohs) (banks) are usually easy to find in big cities and touristy areas. At either a banco or an agência de viagens, you can ask these questions when you want to change money:

  • Vocês trocam dólares por reais? (voh-sehz troh-kah-ooh doh-lah-reez poh hay-ahys?) (Do you change dollars for reais?)
  • A quanto está o dólar? (ah kwahn-toh eh-stah ooh doh-lah?) (What’s the rate for the dollar?)
  • Vocês cobram taxa de comissão? (voh-sehz koh-brah-ooh tah-shah jee koh-mee-sah-ooh?) (Do you charge a commission fee?)

Tip Of course, the value of your money in Brazil depends on the taxa de câmbio. Do yourself a favor by checking the taxa de câmbio before planning a visit to Brazil.

Using Brazilian Banks and ATMs

Most towns in Brazil have a banco (bahn-koh) (bank) and a caixa eletrônico (kah-ee-shah eh-leh-troh-nee-koh) (ATM) that takes cartões internacionais (kah-toh-eez een-teh-nah-see-ooh-nah-eez) (international cards). Chances are, your ATM/debit card from home will work in Brazil. Check with your credit card company before traveling to Brazil to find out whether you can use it to withdraw local currency as well as pay for food and buy things from shops. Generally speaking, international cartões de débito (kah-toh-ees jee deh-bee-toh) can be used to withdraw money at bancos, but will be declined in lojas (loh-zhahs) stores, unless you specify the clerk to choose crédito (kreh-jee-toh) (credit) instead of débito during the sales transaction.

Tip Citibank and HSBC are good cards to use because they’re international banks. Both have several branches in Rio (hee-ooh) and São Paulo (sah-ooh pah-oo-loh). Be sure to check with your bank to find out how much the service charge is per international transaction. Also, many banks only allow you to withdraw a certain maximum amount of cash per day — about $300 a day or so. You will be out of luck if you want to make a large cash purchase in Brazil and assume you can withdraw $800 in a single ATM visit, for example.

Many of the small beach towns, especially in the north and northeast parts of Brazil, don’t have any bank access, which means you need to tirar (chee-rah) (withdraw) as much dinheiro (jing-yay-roh) (money) as you think you’ll need before you get there. You might get lucky and find vendors that accept Apple or Google Pay, but there’s no guarantee. Also keep in mind that smaller branches of Brazilian banks probably aren’t connected to the international system. So your best bet is to withdraw at least a few days’ worth of money from your conta bancária (kohn-tah bahn-kah-ree-ah) (bank account) when you’re in one of Brazil’s larger cities.

Cultural wisdom Brazilian vendors always seem to be out of trocado (troh-kah-doh) (change). Getting large bills changed into smaller bills at the banco, right after you get it out of the caixa eletrônico, is best. Vendors often ask Tem trocado? (tang troh-kah-doh?) (Do you have change?) when you pay, meaning Do you have exact change? That would help me out.

To ask where the nearest banco or caixa eletrônico is, use these questions:

  • Por favor, sabe onde tem um caixa eletrônico? (poh fah-voh, sah-bee ohn-jee tang oong kah-ee-shah eh-leh-troh-nee-koh?) (Excuse me, do you know where there’s an ATM?)
  • Por favor, tem um banco perto daqui? (poh fah-voh, tang oong bahn-koh peh-toh dah-kee?) (Excuse me, is there a bank near here?)

Follow up by asking whether the area in which the bank or ATM is located is reasonably seguro (seh-goo-roh) (safe). Say O local é seguro? (ooh loh-kah-ooh eh seh-goo-roh?) (Is the area safe?). In any case, if you avoid withdrawing money at night, and if you make sure you’re withdrawing from a machine located inside a building, rather than on the street, you should be fine.

Checking Prices and Making Purchases

Talking about preço (ooh preh-soo) (the price) of coisas (ahz koy-zahz) (things) in Brazil is easy. To find the preço, just look on the price tag if you’re in a store. If you’re at an informal outdoor market, you’ll probably need to ask the vendor for the preço.

Here are common ways of asking how much an item is:

  • Quanto custa? (kwahn-toh koo-stah?) (How much does it cost?)
  • Quanto é? (kwahn-toh eh?) (How much is it?)

Here’s how the vendor usually answers — three common responses that all mean the same thing. (For a review of numbers in Portuguese, see Chapter 4.)

  • Vale … reais. (vah-lee … hay-ahys.) (It’s worth [number] reais.)
  • Custa … reais. (koos-tah … hay-ahys.) (It costs [number] reais.)
  • São … reais. (sah-ooh … hay-ahys.) (They’re [number] reais.)

To say a preço, use the following formula: the number of reais, plus e (ee) (and) plus the number of centavos (sen-tah-vohz) (cents):

  • R$12,30

    doze reais e trinta centavos (doh-zee hay-ahys ee treen-tah sen-tah-vohz) (twelve reais and thirty cents)

  • R$4,60

    quatro reais e sessenta centavos (kwah-troh hay-ahys ee seh-sen-tah sen-tah-vohz) (four reais and sixty cents)

  • R$2,85

    dois reais e oitenta e cinco centavos (doh-eez hay-ahys ee oh-ee-tehn-tah ee sing-koh sen-tah-vohz) (two reais and eighty-five cents)

For bargaining tips, see Chapter 8.

Remember Did you notice that instead of decimal points, Brazilians use commas (like in many other parts of the world)? The decimal point is reserved in Portuguese for numbers beginning with one thousand, which looks like 1.000. So R$2.440 is two thousand, four hundred and forty reais. The rule is easy: Just use commas where in English the period is used, and vice-versa.

The paying verb: Pagar

Luckily, when you paga (pah-gah) (pay), visible números (noo-meh-rohz) (numbers) are often involved, which makes communication easier. At a nice shop or supermarket, you see the number pop up on a cash register.

Tip If you have a problem communicating at an informal outdoor market, you can always pull out your phone and show a number on your calculator or ask the vendor to type in the number.

Here’s how to conjugate pagar:

Conjugation

Pronunciation

eu pago

eh-ooh pah-goh

você paga

voh-seh pah-gah

ele/ela paga

eh-lee/eh-lah pah-gah

nós pagamos

nohz pah-gah-mohz

eles/elas pagam

eh-leez/eh-lahz pah-gah-ooh

vocês pagam

voh-sehz pah-gah-ooh

This is what pagar looks like in the past tense (for a review of the past tense, see Chapter 6):

Conjugation

Pronunciation

eu paguei

eh-ooh pah-gay

você pagou

voh-seh pah-goh

ele/ela pagou

eh-lee/eh-lah pah-goh

nós pagamos

nohz pah-gah-mohz

eles/elas pagaram

eh-leez/eh-lahz pah-gah-rah-oong

vocês pagaram

voh-sehz pah-gah-rah-oong

Here are some uses of pagar:

  • Quer pagar agora, ou depois? (keh pah-gah ah-goh-rah, ooh deh-poh-eez?) (Do you want to pay now or later?)
  • Já pagou? (zhah pah-goh?) (Did you pay already?)
  • Paguei vinte reais. (pah-gay veen-chee hay-ahys.) (I paid 20 reais.)
  • Essa empresa paga bem. (eh-sah em-preh-zah pah-gah bang.) (This company pays well.)
  • Vão pagar a conta. (vah-ooh pah-gah ah kohn-tah.) (They will pay the bill.)

Paying for items and services

You can relax when you’re at a Brazilian cash register. The process for paying is similar to what you’re used to. That is, you can pay with cash, a cartão de crédito (kah-tah-ooh jee kreh-jee-toh) (credit card) and maybe even Apple Pay. Just remember to bring along a form of I.D. because you may need to present it if you pay by cartão de crédito.

Recibos (heh-see-boos) (receipts) are easy to get in an established store, and even vendors at informal markets can sometimes give you an official handwritten receipt.

These phrases may come in handy when you’re at the caixa (kah-ee-shah) (register):

  • Tem desconto para estudantes/idosos? (tang des-kohn-toh pah-rah eh-stoo-dahn-cheez/ee-doh-zoos?) (Do you have a student/senior discount?)
  • Você tem uma caneta? (voh-seh tang ooh-mah kah-neh-tah?) (Do you have a pen?)
  • Me dá um recibo, por favor? (mee dah oong heh-see-boh, poh fah-voh?) (Can you give me a receipt, please?)

The vendor may ask you:

  • Tem algum documento? Um passaporte? (tang ah-ooh-goong doh-koo-men-toh? oong pah-sah-poh-chee?) (Do you have some I.D.? A passport?)
  • Qual é a validade do cartão? (kwah-ooh eh ah vah-lee-dah-jee doo kah-tah-ooh?) (What’s the expiration on the card?)
  • Cual é o CVV/CVN? (kwah-ooh eh ooh seh-veh-veh/seh-veh-eh-nee) (What’s the CSV/security code? In Brazil, the code is referred to as CVV or CVN)
  • Quer o CPF na nota? (keh ooh seh-peh-eh-fee nah noh-tah?) (Do you want your national identity number – the Brazilian equivalent of a Social Security number in the United States – on the receipt?)

For this final question, you can just say Não, obrigado/a (nah-ooh, oh-bree-gah-doo/dah – obrigado if you’re male; obrigada if you’re female – for non-binary people, see Chapter 2) (No thanks).

Soundnative Brazilians often repeat a verb in response to a question they’re being asked. With Tem… ? (tang… ?) (Do you have… ?), the answer is Tenho (tang-yoh) (I have) rather than just Sim (sing) (Yes). You may be asked, Você é americano? (voh-seh eh ah-meh-ree-kah-noh?) (Are you American?). If you are, the answer is Sou (soh) (I am), not Sim.